


things just aren't like that here

by Miss_Mil



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s01e20 There But for the Grace of God, F/M, Gen, early seasons, relationship if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28382835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Mil/pseuds/Miss_Mil
Summary: It’s for other universes, different realities where she made another choice. It’s for the ones where he calls her Doctor, and not captain. The ones where she wears a skirt suit and has long hair, but instead she wears khaki green and carries a gun.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 11
Kudos: 51





	things just aren't like that here

**Author's Note:**

> a re-post of a fic from with some minor changes

**Prompt:**

_“I take it they’re not engaged in your reality?”  
“…No.”_

-//-

Later, Daniel finds her in the locker room. He’s been discharged from the infirmary, a white sling on his arm and a frown on his face.

She disappeared after Colonel Samuels and his band of merry band guys retired for the evening, leaving nothing but a sour taste in her mouth. Sam isn’t sure how long it’s been since then, but she’s sat here alone for a long while, listening as people started to trickle away. The base is mostly deserted now, the majority of the staff having gone home to their families.

Sam doesn’t have such a luxury, and with the hearing scheduled to start early tomorrow, she’s too keyed up to go home to sleep anyway.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hi Daniel,” she offers, but doesn’t move. “You feeling okay?”

Ignoring her question, he presses on. “I have something for you. It’s from Doctor Carter.”

His words are slightly hesitant, like he too is unsure of how to process the past twenty-four hours. The alternate reality, a staff blast wound and amongst other things, the notion that another version of Samanatha Carter never joined the military are perhaps too much for any of them to deal with right now.

Sam turns to look at him, light from the corridor framing him from behind. “Oh?” she quirks an eyebrow.

Daniel shrugs a little, leaning against the doorframe. “I didn’t think you would want it in front of Jack and Teal’c. I was under the impression the contents were - _are_ \- probably personal.”

He steps forward, handing her a crumpled piece of paper. “She - uh, Doctor Carter - gave it to me before all hell broke loose,” he says. “I think she was really... intrigued by the idea that our world existed.” 

Sam quirks the corner of her mouth, flexing her fingers that grip the bench she’s currently perched on. “I can understand that.”

Daniel nods, offers a quick smile and then he’s gone, leaving her in the silence once more.

She stays still for a while, fingering the edges of the white square. She’s curious, wondering what another version of herself could want to say.

Eventually, she unfurls the paper, handling each curve and crease with care. When she’s done, there is a simple sentence; it’s cursive familiar to her in a way that’s a mix of curiosity and fascination.

She traces the words with her fingers, contemplating the meaning behind them. Around her, the locker room is silent.

_When he asks, say yes._

Chewing the corner of her lip, she folds the paper neatly and keeps it in one hand. She stares into the dim light around her, all manner of thoughts running through her head with such speed that she doesn’t hear the person enter and block the doorway.

A shadow falls over her and she jerks, crumpling the paper into a ball with surprise.

“Carter.”

Her name rolls off his tongue with ease, though despite the casual tone she finds herself standing up as she snaps to attention.

“Colonel. Sir.”

He stands still, hovering in the doorway with hands shoved into pockets in the same way that’s become his trademark over the last year. He exudes nonchalance, but she’s learnt to read the hesitation behind his eyes.

“Whatcha got there?” he says with a jerk of his head.

She feels a slight blush creep up her neck as he gets straight to the point, and the note feels heavy in her hand. “Uh. Just something from Daniel.”

The colonel stares at her, tilting his head slightly. “Something to do with a message from your twin?”

“What makes you think - ” she cuts herself off, glancing down. Sam shouldn’t be surprised; it’s his job to know what’s going on with his team so instead of finishing her sentence, she changes tact. “Daniel?”

He shrugs, stepping into the room and over to his locker. “He only mentioned a note, Captain. Not what’s in it.”

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Oh.” It’s suddenly clear now that he sought her out, probably with the intent to make sure what she’s holding in her hand doesn’t bear any military significance in their fight against the Goa’uld. It’s likely it has not occurred to him that the contents could be personal.

The silence stretches on, and he leans casually on the door of his locker, folding his arms and gazing at her. A few moments later, he speaks. “So, what’s it say?”

Her fingers move over the note, still weighty in her hand. Suddenly, she feels a need to hold onto some privacy, and a part of her doesn’t want the colonel to know any more about the other world than he already does.

She contemplates it for a minute, unsure of what to tell him. His reaction to their engagement in another universe still rings fresh in her mind, and something tells her that maybe he won’t take this too well either.

_It’s theoretically possible._

_It’s against regulations!_

But then she looks at him, takes in his earnest gaze and any lie she was about to utter vanishes from her mind. “They’re instructions.”

She knows her answer is cryptic, vague even. But now, she’ll know how much he’s going to push it, and how much he really wants to know.

“For what?”

Sam glances down, hesitating again for only the briefest of moments. Then she swallows and stretches out her hand; stark white sheet between them.

He takes the paper, unfurling it with precision and smoothing out the creases. One by one, he straightens the crumple lines, but in a way that’s agonisingly, painfully slow. She watches him, following his eyes as they trace the words before him written almost-but-not-quite in her hand.

It feels like an eternity before he speaks.

“Interesting instructions.” His words are flat, devoid of humour but tinged with something akin to curiosity.

Sam scrambles for something to say. “Yes, sir.”

“Not very clear,” he muses thoughtfully.

She resists the urge to shift on her feet. “I don’t think she considered the possibility we’d both be in the military, sir.”

He nods slowly, pursing his lips in that way that tells her he’s considering something. Dark brown eyes linger on her face, flicking down and then back up and she feels a familiar surge of heat on her cheeks. Right now, she’s eternally grateful she’s still in her BDUs.

“Mm,” he says eventually. “Funny thing that.”

The colonel pushes off his locker, stepping toward her. She watches as he folds the note, bending it back into a perfect square as he creases It only twice. He hands it over to her, fingers brushing deliberately against her own.

He stares at her for a moment longer before the corners of his mouth curl in a flirtatious smile. “You never know what the future holds, Captain.”

Sam blinks, her tongue darting out to wet her lips and unsure if she should answer him. But then he steps away, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his cargo pants and striding towards the door.

“G’night, Carter,” he calls back over his shoulder. A second later he’s gone and she’s still trying to work out what the hell just happened.

She lets out another breath, shaking her head slightly and chalking up the whole day to another one of those strange experiences that seems to occur on this base. She idly wonders if she’ll ever get used to it.

But for now, they have a hearing to prepare for, and another fight on their hands with the future of the program in question along with a potential even bigger threat. Sam moves to her locker, briefly glancing over at O’Neill’s name plate before she opens the door to her own.

Rummaging around at the bottom, she finds a small box. She pops the lid and tucks the note inside.

Despite the intentions of the other version of Samantha Carter, probably designed to push them - both her and the colonel - along towards a more romantic relationship, this Sam knows that she’ll never be able to do what the note says.

It’s for other universes, different realities where she made another choice. It’s for the ones where he calls her Doctor, and not captain. The ones where she wears a skirt suit and has long hair, but instead she wears khaki green and carries a gun.

But she vows, that if by some grand intervention of the universe, he ever asks her one day, she promises herself that she’ll say yes.

**Author's Note:**

> so, i had this random depression-lockdown-olympics-got-cancelled-and-im-stranded-in-europe meltdown and deleted all my fics because i decided not to write fanfic anymore. 
> 
> over the past few months, Sarah_M has been coaxing me out of my hole and i've been fixing up my old fics. i won't repost all of them, but there are a few favourites.


End file.
